In the big world of marriage troubles, God’s Word provides the only real solution. Divorce is always an easy answer, but God hates divorce, and it ought to be a last resort reserved for cases of infidelity or other sins of similar magnitude.

But living in a state of long-term misery is no solution either. So let’s just consider a few principles that might produce some measure of improvement. At least it will be moving you in the right direction. It’s always easy to make things worse, so let’s think about how we can make things better. Even if you can’t change your husband, you can change your own heart and attitude. So let’s start there.

1. Think about what you could improve rather than only focusing on what your husband could do better. Confess your own sins rather than his.

2. Consider his perspective. What is it like for him to be married to you?

3. Do not harbor resentments. Love covers a multitude of sins. Ask God for that kind of love.

4. Once you’ve forgiven something, don’t bring it up again. God doesn’t do that to you. Read More

Hi ladies! This fall I will be doing an online webinar study. It will be a topical room by room through the house study, with a focus on purpose and joy.

The fine people at Canon Press have set it up so that you can register as a group, if that appeals, or as an individual. It will be a live webinar, but the talks will be recorded and each registrant will have 6 months of access to the recordings.

I am looking forward to it, and would love to have you join us! You can register and find out more here.

Same leather jacket as our first date . . . and I still like hangin on while he drives!

This is a bit random, but I thought I’d do an entirely anecdotal post about courtship. What with all the hullaballoo lately on the interwebs on this particular topic, I thought I’d just share what it was like for me.

Dad (as you may or may not know) wrote Her Hand in Marriage which is a biblical defense for the courtship model, and that book is one of the things which put courtship on the map in the first place. He had been teaching on the subject for several years, and then he put everything all in one place in that book. Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye first came out right around the same time as my dad’s book – I don’t know which one came first. Personally, I think that moment in the late ‘90s was right for this subject because the first wave of kids raised in the Christian education movement were just reaching marriageable age. I was the oldest in my family, and I had gone all the way through a classical school from kindergarten onwards, and of course the Harrises were right at the beginning of the wave of homeschooling.

I’m only speaking for myself here because I’ve never even met Josh Harris, Read More

So today is Valentine’s Day and I wanted to write a little something on the topic of married love. That time when you were first falling in love was a very heady time. Chances are good that if you are a few years out from that, and have kids, and life has somewhat eclipsed your romance, that you are not currently in a phase where your husband calling you makes your heart race. In fact, you may even answer the phone with a complaint about your day, a comment about something he forgot to do, or just something incredibly mundane. Truthfully, things could be at a point where you are seeing him as an extra chore on your list. Maybe when you see your husband you see the things you wish he was doing, a life you wish you had, or a long list of failed expectations.

When ever the topic of submission comes up, the standard objection is “But where do you draw the line?” This is a good question which we ought to consider.

We live in an egalitarian society, where any kind of hierarchy is considered to be bad. But our Maker has established a chain of authority and submission for His people, and we ought to give His instructions our attention. God’s Word is for His people. I do not expect an unbeliever to understand or apply God’s standards that He has given for own His people to follow. These are house rules that are ours, and we do not impose them on our neighbors. But we also tend to run to the hard cases (read Rachel’s post The Human Shield) to create an argument against the easy cases. Were there no abused women in Ephesus when Paul wrote his words about submission to them? Of course there probably were, and wise pastors would watch out for them. But . . . were there no quarrelsome wives in Ephesus either? Paul was addressing the latter, and we still need to hear this today.

Submission is a holy thing. Why do I say this? Because Jesus submitted to the Father. Submission is seen and lived out for us in the very Godhead. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue Read More